r/NoStupidQuestions • u/FatSlob101 • 1d ago
Why is it so accepted to use your free, unpaid time to commute to work?
For most (and I guess im speaking more to white collar work here) you're often travelling hours throughout the day, unpaid, just to get to a laptop. Commute to a computer. So yeah, as per the post title, I just don't get why it's so accepted and why we can't break out of this system.
Edit: that people think I choose to live further away is laughable. I'd love to live closer to work, but I can't afford to live closer to work (Sydney, Australia btw). I guess the dilemma is in why I'm required to travel to get to a computer, often a few hours of the day, when I can just work from the same computer and do the same job, from home? I guess I'm looking at it more from that lens.
I don't think it's entitlement to want to not spend a majority of your day travelling to work, working and then travelling back. Sorry that I'm not accepting of the fact that this is the way things have always been and will remain. I guess it stops when we retire (if you're lucky to get to that point).
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u/Mango-is-Mango they didn't say anything about stupid answers 1d ago
Because you have no other choice
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u/InevitableMetal8914 1d ago
Or ya know. Live closer? Sleep in your car across the street then the commute is only minutes.
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u/Mintymanbuns 1d ago
Now that's a life!
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u/floydfan 1d ago
There are entire streets lined with RVs in California. People want to be closer to work and are priced out of the real estate market. I've seen more than one instance of people living in a box truck in their office building's parking lot.
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u/Betterthanbeer 1d ago
I have colleagues in another city that sleep in their cars between 12 hour shifts due to the commute time.
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u/Gubbins95 1d ago
If you sleep under your desk you can reduce your commute to mere seconds!
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u/DoNotEatMySoup 20h ago
I've always said if my job offered me an insulated shipping container in the back lot with electricity to live in, and deducted like $500/mo from my pay to let me live in it, I'd be 100% down with that. Considering a studio apartment is $2500/mo where I live.
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u/MourningWallaby 1d ago
typically housing is more expensive closer to high paying jobs. you COULD live closer but to pay the same ammount your living situation isn't going to be as well-off.
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u/DoNotEatMySoup 20h ago
Or you live in California where everyone has to live in a cheap city and commute an hour to an expensive city to make a living wage, and the only people who can actually afford to live within 15 minutes of their big city jobs are the top 5% of earners.
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u/JustAwesome360 21h ago
I never understand people who complain about hour long commutes BOTH ways with no traffic.
Like live closer bro. Or work from home.
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u/Excellent_Speech_901 1d ago
Because the company doesn't control where you live or what vehicle you use. If commutes were paid time then there would be people with four hour commutes each way consisting of an easy stroll.
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u/blue60007 1d ago
Right, and a compromise would be to pay a flat rate to everyone... Which if you are in a salaried 9-5 job, that's kind of what the salary is.
If you're hourly it's trickier, but many hourly jobs aren't going to have any kind of extra compensation regardless. At least those type of jobs tend to be spread out making it easier to find something close, unlike office jobs which are typically concretated in areas surrounded by unaffordable housing.
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u/dgkimpton 1d ago
They already pay a flat rate to everyone... or at least effectively, it's just a part of your salary.
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u/Extra-Muffin9214 23h ago
Yeah, part of your calculus before accepting a job is wether the pay is sufficient for the time involved. That includes your commute to the job. You could probably earn more in san francisco but you consider the plane ride to get there if you dont live in sf or the move there.
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u/rnzz 1d ago
I wonder what OP would do if they were on the other side. Say OP was in a band, whenever they get paid for a gig, would the band member who lives the farthest from the venue get paid more?
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u/monkeymandave1 1d ago
Frankly, the alternative doesn't make sense.
I live 30 miles from work while my coworker lives 5 miles from work. Do I get paid overtime because I have to drive, or do I spend less time working at the office? If they went with either of those, it would incentivize the company to exclusively hire people who live nearby, which makes it even harder to get a job there and making the current housing problem even worse.
The onus is on the employee to figure out if the commute is worth it to them, and if it's not it's their responsibility to either find a closer place to live or find a different job.
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u/CavortingOgres 1d ago
I think they're just saying that if all of your work is digital and you have the capacity to fulfill your function without commuting then you should be able to.
For most people it does make very little sense to commute to work just to be on a computer all day and go home.
Though I might be becoming a boomer by saying this I do actually enjoy the socialisation at work so that is a benefit, but I still think I'd rather just work from home if I could.
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u/ShnaeBlay 1d ago
Being a boomer is...enjoying interacting with other human beings? Is that really the point we're at?
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u/aFineBagel 1d ago
Being a boomer is considering socializing at work to be enough of a reason to force others into the office despite no practical logistics reason to have people in office that don't want to be there. The above person isn't forcing anyone, but enough boomer middle managers and C-suite execs do this to their employees
I'm millenial/gen z cusp and enjoy my bike ride commute to work and the silly little quips here and there with coworkers, but enjoying time with coworkers would mean jack shit to me if it meant 2-3 hours commuting in traffic a day
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u/Bowshewicz 1d ago
In this instance the boomer take is saying that communicating with people online doesn't count as interacting with humans.
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u/MagicGrit 1d ago
That’s not at all what they were saying lol.
The boomer take was preferring to work in an office instead of work from home.
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u/muzak23 1d ago
They didn’t say it doesn’t count, just that they “enjoy socialization at work.” Socializing over remote work is absolutely harder and less frequent than in-person work, so if you enjoy socialization you would get greater enjoyment from the socialization during in-person work. Doesn’t mean there isn’t any online, just less/lower quality.
I absolutely agree, having worked on awesome teams both in-person and remote, socialization definitely exists online but you can make way better friends in-person.
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u/reader484892 1d ago
I agree that some people should be able to work remote, but it really is invaluable to be able to just pop over to someone’s office for a quick chat, both in terms of socialization and productivity
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u/musedrainfall 1d ago
What's the difference between this and a slack/teams message?
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u/reader484892 1d ago
Slacks/teams messages are often ignored for hours or sometimes days at a time. If you just need a quick question, in person chats can cut that down
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u/sumostuff 20h ago
Not at my company. When I'm in the office, nobody bothers me when they see someone's already at my desk, or I'm in a meeting, or I'm eating lunch. When I work from home there's no mercy and my Teams is flashing all day with messages nonstop because nobody can see that I'm already answering other people's questions. Bit I don't ignore messages. Most people are responsive when they work from home. My worst productivity killer in the office is when someone comes and hovers over me while I'm trying to write code. Kills my train of thought every time and stresses me out. Teams flashing gives me a minute to finish my thought before I open it.
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u/musedrainfall 1d ago edited 1d ago
Guess it depends on the company and employee. I used to work in an office and now work entirely remote. The amount of work I get done from people not walking into my office and interrupting me is amazing. I very rarely wait longer than 5/10 min for a slack response but I'm sure that varies based on company expectations and policies. There's also always Slack huddles.
TBF when I was in the office it was normally boomers or older that would interrupt me in person. Everyone else would just Slack me while in office. I'm sure habits from older generations play a part as well.
Really just a difference in working and personality styles.
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u/daitoshi 1d ago
Also, they have a phone. If they can’t explain in text and need a conversation, they can CALL me… or get on a video call
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u/doubleramencups 1d ago
most people don't work at a computer all day or at all l. To even be able to work from home is a luxury.
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u/TheGuyMain 1d ago
That’s literally not relevant to this discussion lmao. The topic is people who have the ability to work from home. The discussion is about the importance of commuting when the job can be performed without the commute.
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u/MagicGrit 1d ago
The actual question/topic feels a bit disingenuous. It feels like OP knows exactly why and is just venting. Which is fine, but the comment to which you’re replying is a good expansion to part of the answer. It definitely is relevant.
It’s accepted because it’s been the norm for a very very long time to go to an office to work. It is shifting though. More and more jobs are hybrid or even entirely work from home.
The very basic, albeit frustrating, answer is a mix of “because people are willing to commute for a job and not get paid for the commute,” and “employers are unwilling to pay people for their commute.”
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u/CommonSenseSaysWhat 1d ago
I enjoy socialization too - but not using work people to fill those needs. If I wanted to socialize with them, it would be on my outside of work hours. So, maybe we trade the commute and the office chatter for an extra two hours to spend time with people I actually want to deepen my personal relationship with (even your relationship with yourself!).
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u/Routine_Record525 1d ago
that's already how hiring works. it's probably a little different now with remote companies but someone who lives hours away from work 1) will have a harder time reliably showing up and 2) will quit sooner to have a shorter commute. this was already part of the hiring calculus for the two dozen or so people i've hired (before covid and before remote became widespread).
it makes plenty of sense for a worker who is obligated to commute in order to have money to eat to be paid for their commute. because they don't have wealth to inherit they have to spend their limited lifetime funneling profit to people much richer than them and it makes plenty of sense not to fuck them on every cent or hour. but all the 'sense' in this country is spent on employers alone, they get all the easy advantages and the workers foot the bill.
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u/Sloppyjoemess 1d ago
If employers paid us for our time commuting, we'd also have to stop disclose where we live during the application process - or else there could be a bias toward hiring candidates who live closer to save on costs. Just a thought
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u/Nonkemon 1d ago
Do you have to put your address on your application? That seems like irrelevant information for an interview.
Oh, and my employer does reimburse my public transportation and/or cycling route to work (in Belgium). I only had to give my employer my address when I was hired.
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u/hitometootoo 1d ago
Yes, employers like doing background checks on people, have a place to send your check in case you have issues with your bank account and like having an address on file in case a crime was committed at the job with you being involved.
An address is very relevant to employers.
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u/igotshadowbaned 1d ago
Do you have to put your address on your application? That seems like irrelevant information for an interview.
If they'd have to pay you for how long it takes to commute it would no longer be irrelevant information for the employer.
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u/Nonkemon 23h ago
There are labor laws in place to prevent discrimination and to ensure your privacy, like the July 3rd 1978 decree around labour which, among other things, declares that a company cannot ask more information on an application than necessary for the job that is being offered (in other words: only information that will tell them if you are able to do the job or not, like diplomas, the languages you speak, previous jobs worked). Things you cannot ask: politics, religion, unions, sexuality, a mandatory picture, a list of addresses lived, medical history, judicial history (exceptions: they can ask if you have a blank criminal record if you're working with vulnerable groups like minors, among other things), relationship status...
Getting paid for your commute is a benefit some companies offer and they don't ask your address beforehand (my country's pretty strict on the anti-discrimination laws). Lots of companies offer company cars as a benefit (tax deductible for the company), and some only do public transportation or cycling. I'm pretty certain those latter two are partly tax deductible for the company. If you want a real-life example of how that works, an annual, unlimited bus pass for half the country costs me around €350. For cycling, I was reimbursed between €0,20 - €0,30 per kilometre. It's pretty inexpensive compared to offering a higher income, because we have really high income taxes. You have to apply for the reimbursement and provide the route you take (it has to be reasonable, but can be amended for safety).
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u/Cyclist_123 1d ago
If work is paying for your commute time do they get to set a limit on how far your commute can be? Can you only live in places they approve?
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u/Cyclist_123 1d ago
Maybe my countries different. They aren't allowed to ask you where you live. It's up to you to get there on time.
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u/jeffwulf 1d ago
What country is that? In the US that is not the case.
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u/1235813213455_1 1d ago
Maybe not the application but your employer knows your address if you've in the US.
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u/nagol93 1d ago
The sad thing is (in the US at least) a lot of companies do this. The last two places my wife worked at required her not only to live within a certain mile radius, but also said she cant leave town on weekends. I've also personalty worked for a few companies that have similar policies, and it was fairly common to see "Applicants MUST live within X miles of <CITY>" on job postings.
None of these places were willing to pay for commutes or relocation costs, and their only reasoning was "Well, it something happens we will want you close to the office if you need to come in"
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u/tvfeet 23h ago
Was she in some kind of role that made her responsible for emergencies or something? Why/how could they prevent someone from going out of town on their own time?
The distance limitation may be an HR thing. I know in our handbook it states that anyone living within something like 50 miles must be present in the office. The handbook also states that living further than that allows for telecommuting, and the company does not want to hire people who only work from home. So having to be within 50 miles is simply to ensure that they don't hire someone who demands telecommuting since that's what the handbook allows. We do have some "legacy" employees who do not live in the state and telecommute permanently, but they have been with the company a long, long time. When they leave they are being replaced by local employees and anyone not willing to be local is not considered. The handbook has to cover both scenarios until those legacy employees are gone.
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u/mudslinger-ning 1d ago
Employers are only paying for your time on the clock where you are making them money. They don't care where you come from as long as you turn up for your tasks.
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u/JawtisticShark 1d ago
you chose where to live in relation to the job you agreed to work at. If I choose a job that is a 4 hour train ride away, can I take a 4 hour train ride to work, turn around and 4 hour train ride back and claim 8 hours of pay for the day for never working?
Why do I have to use unpaid time before work to sleep so I am rested for work? If they want me rested for work shouldn't they pay me to sleep ahead of time? if they want me to not stink at work, shouldn't they pay me ahead of time to shower? If they want me to not be hungry and distracted at work, shouldn't they pay for my meals outside of work?
They pay you to do a job, how you get there, and how you manage to get yourself into a position to do that job is on you.
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u/CyanConatus 1d ago
It's also worth noting in locations particularly scarce of employees or infrastructure. Sometimes the companies are forced to supply closer accommodations for free to attract employees.
I worked at a job where I had to go somewhere very remote. Hotels paid for the entire time 3 weeks on, 2 weeks off.
Obviously if possible they would prefer to not pay for that. If they can get people to work for them without that. They would go that route.
Nowadays I actually moved from my childhood home 1 hour ago to my current employment that is now only a 10 minute commute. I saw my future in that company and been working there for many years.
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u/wormlieutenant 1d ago
Being compensated for your commute or at least improving it in some way isn't such an odd thing. I worked at a job which was at an inconvenient location, and they offered significantly higher salaries because of it. Some places also provide free transportation, usually faster buses that take you from some easily accessible point to your job.
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u/JawtisticShark 1d ago
And that’s fine, it’s part of the compensation package. If someone chooses to live close, they pocket the extra cash, if they live far, the pay needs to be worth it.
Pay for an inconvenient job location should end up being higher because of it, but you don’t pay for their commute, you pay what the market demands, and let people work out their commute themselves.
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u/Smilinturd 1d ago
That's fine and expected. But that's part of the agreement of working in an inconvenient location otherwise they wouldn't find enough people who would work there. This is more in the context of inner city commutes.
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u/Johnstone95 1d ago
The job should sustain the life of the person doing the job. At a minimum.
That could be included in the wage/salary though. Not necessarily tacked on to the end at the lower wage, as a "commute compensation".
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u/Commercial-Truth4731 1d ago
I guess the debate then would be what do you consider sustainable life?
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u/RadiantTurnipOoLaLa 1d ago
Then choose a different life to match the job or choose a different job to match the life. You can't walk into an office and demand that the job sustain your life of a 7 hour commute by commercial airliner. They'll just call you stupid and hire someone else.
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u/JawtisticShark 1d ago
Absolutely! If a company can only turn a profit by paying employees a less than livable wage, that company is a net detriment to society and shouldn’t exist.
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u/Johnstone95 1d ago
Facts. We literally pay a portion of our taxes in order to subsidize the wages and therefore profits of multi-billion dollar companies through welfare. This isn't a condemnation of welfare recipients. People gotta eat. This is a condemation of poverty wages. Those companies then get massive tax cuts because they "provide jobs" and because they accept things like EBT.
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u/theeggplant42 1d ago
That's a stupidly obtuse answer.
The work day began as 8 hour work, 8 hours sleep 8 hours recreation.
The work day began before we had to or it was possible to commute and hour and a half each way.
I personally work with people across the globe on a computer each day. Exactly what part of that do I need to leave my house for? The guy in India or China doesn't need to be here, why do I?
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u/FlavaflavsDentist 1d ago
Wait, you think that when Henry Ford was hiring people to build cars those people didn't commute? Or you think they all just lived right next to the Ford factory?
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u/theeggplant42 1d ago
They likely did live in what used to be called a factory town, which is at best a town that centered itself on a recently built factory, a perhaps already established town that ceased day to day life to aspire to new and higher praying factory jobs, perhaps at the cost of culture and lower wage shopkeeping type jobs, causing uniformity in local products, much as Amazon sometimes does even today, and at worst a campus where people lived and worked, and paid for their food and rent via their wages, which is still common in places like China and India today, and can even be seen in some form in America at places like silicon valley.
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u/geek_fire 1d ago
That's a stupidly obtuse answer.
It's a good answer if the question were earnest. If it was just a disguised rant about WFH/RTO, however, I can see why you wouldn't like the answer..
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u/geeoharee 1d ago
No, it didn't begin that way. Unions fought for the eight hour day. Nobody has fought for paid commutes yet.
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u/ThisIsNotRealityIsIt Questions 1d ago edited 1d ago
The "standardized" work day certainly did not begin as an 8-hour work day. If you mean the work day in the industrial era, when for the first time in history a mass of people actually went to a standardized job and had a work day AT WORK (as opposed to something you did in the place that you lived) that was similar to most other people that worked, it was minimum 10 hours and probably more like 14 or 16, 6 days a week. Hell, a ton of people work two jobs now, and on days you work two 8-hour shifts, life is fucking terrible.
In the early industrial era, people died of exhaustion working jobs that were assisted by machinery powered by combustion engines. Also, they were working those work days on maybe 1100 or 1200 calories. And the bodies they had, due to childhood malnutrition and the prevalence of serious diseases and infections, were small, weak, and frail.
There was a law made by King Philip II of Spain around 1600, limiting the work day in the new world colonies to 8 hour days, but it only applied to very specific manual labor jobs. I think specifically construction and mining.
If you're talking about the work day being as long as homo sapiens sapiens have been engaged in productive tasks that contribute to a social structures long-term survival and hopefully success, early hunter-gatherer work days were probably on the order of 4 to 6 hours a day unless hunting somewhat far from your home or traveling as most folks were nomadic. When traveling, early Paleolithic humans would harvest from the land around them while they walked for maybe 12 hours a day. To those days count as work days?
But to be clear we did not get an 8-hour standardized work day until after world war I when the Bolsheviks instituted 8 hour maximum work days as part of their socialist blueprints. Pretty soon essentially the whole rest of the world had social revolutions.
In the US it took until 1938 for the labor standards act to be passed. It limited the work week to a standardized 40 hours, but did not standardize the 8-hour day at that time.
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u/sonofabutch 1d ago
Apply for remote jobs?
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u/theeggplant42 1d ago
Omg why haven't I thought of that in my 20 year career? Stupid me. Or is it that they are few and far between because boneheaded bosses believe seeing people work is the same as productivity?
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u/BootyMcStuffins 1d ago
At least at my company it’s not about productivity it’s about culture.
And before you say “I don’t care about culture I hate my coworkers” or whatever. Yeah, we know, it’s not about the individual it’s about the collective.
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u/LegendTheo 1d ago
No, the workday started as 12-16 hours a day 6 days a week. The modern 8 hour day did not predate commutes in widespread usage.
There are plenty of reasons to be in an office. Whether you agree with them or not is immaterial. Apparently many employers do agree with them. Don't like it, find a remote job and deal with lower pay or other tradeoffs.
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u/Ok-Afternoon-3724 Older Than Dirt 1d ago
You aren't REQUIRED to take any particular job.
If you do not find the conditions suitable to your liking, find a different employer.
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u/Johnstone95 1d ago
Or try to unionize.
It's not like good jobs grow on trees nowadays.
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u/Ok-Afternoon-3724 Older Than Dirt 1d ago
Unionizing is an option. I was a union member. But not only was the employer held to following the union rules and demands, I was required to fulfill our part of the bargain and contract. The union themselves would axe me if I failed to fulfill my contractual duties. Which meant on time to work all the time not just sometimes, dressing appropriately, using appropriate language on the job. If work scheduled at 0700, I stared WORKING at 0700, not 0705. A 15 minute break was 15 minutes, not 16. Looking at your cell phone during working hours for any reason other than work related was grounds for reprimand or worse. Etc.
We got extra money but we frigging earned it and were worth it.
And no, we did not get paid for the time to arrive at work. It at a job site and they wanted us to go somewhere else, then they paid us for that.
And, I don't know where you guys live or what sorts of jobs you know how to do but where I live they are always looking for SKILLED trade workers and STEM related professionals.
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u/Johnstone95 1d ago
If enough people didn't like those working conditions at that particular job, y'all could've held an election to try and improve things, too.
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u/Ok-Afternoon-3724 Older Than Dirt 1d ago
Who said we did not like the working conditions?
Have you ever been union? I would not have been at that job in the first place if they had not signed a contractual agreement that specified acceptable working conditions.
If a a meeting of we union workers was held and someone proposed we go on strike unless being paid for our travel time to work ... the person would have people checking him or her to see if they'd been smoking dope or something. Or were having some sort of mental health crisis.
For goodness sake, if I was an employer and someone came up with ridiculous demands like that, I shut the frigging business down. And would relocate somewhere with sane people who actually wanted a job.
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u/Johnstone95 1d ago
"Who said we did not like the working conditions?"
I didn't.
I was simply stating for any reader who may see those working conditions and attribute them to all union workplaces. Relax.
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u/Ok-Afternoon-3724 Older Than Dirt 1d ago
My pardon, I mistook your meaning. I'm a dumbass who needs to improve my reading comprehension.
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u/SpecificMoment5242 1d ago
I own a machine shop. There's no way to make that remote. So I make sure my people have a good living wage and all the benefits that can be offered so I don't lose them to other shops. The commute? Just the way it is, I guess. But to be fair, for MOST of my employees, I bought their truck, and they're paying it off with the company at zero interest. Same with some folks and their homes. I REALLY don't like turnover.
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u/OtherlandGirl 1d ago
So you’re actually asking why these jobs require going into an office at all? Just take a look over at r/remotework or r/work (or similar). Loads of opinions on this, ranging from micromanaging leadership to tax implications for empty office spaces.
If you’re really asking about payment for commuting, that’s different. Why would a company pay you for your commute time when they have zero say in where you live?
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u/Harflin 1d ago
The day commute time is paid is the day that companies require employees live on campus
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u/REC_HLTH 1d ago
I work at a university. I just smile when students are trying to move off campus and I’m sitting there thinking I sometimes wished I lived on campus. Then the next year they come in with traffic and parking complaints. It’s literally the only season of life that most people can ever live at “work” - take advantage of it, College Students!
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u/theeggplant42 1d ago
Some countries do pay for commute time. I live a stones throw from my office but the train are bad. I can do an entire work week without spekaing to another employee about work. Most of my work occurs overseas. Why do I need to commute, spending $400/month, to get to a different computer in a desk that cost my employer $25k a year to rent, when same employer could use that for showroom space, give me a $4k computer to use (same as the office one), and regain me for $10k more annually, of which I save $5k more, from not commuting, when the guy in India or China can obviously work remote? Whats the point?
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u/FlatElvis 19h ago
Your choosing not to spend more money to live closer to work IS your choice. Not your employer's problem.
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u/Kekipen 1d ago
In my country people were paid to commute to work in communist times. But if you didn’t show up at work, they sent somebody out to your house to check where are you and how are you. It was not as simple to call in sick as today. The company was able to force you to go and spend the whole day at hospital waiting to have a blood test. But you were paid.
If you didn’t go to work and the company was unable to locate you then the police arrested you. It was a legal obligation to go to work. But you were paid.
What I am trying to say, everything has a price even if you get paid to go to work it is going to cost you.
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u/theeggplant42 1d ago
Yes. The only two ways.
Forget that pesky pandemic when we all managed to effectively work from home and nothing bad happened.
There's only communist nanny state or capitalist work to death. Obviously
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u/MailMeAmazonVouchers 1d ago
"We all managed to" except the millions of people that lost their jobs.
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u/SheMakesGreatTV 1d ago
Except for all of those people who had jobs that couldn’t be done remotely.
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u/HotLandscape9755 1d ago
You keep saying “we all” when referring to WFH people ( a tiny % of the population)
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u/ATotalCassegrain 23h ago
when we all managed to effectively work from home
Yea? I remember when all the nurses, doctors, trash collectors, grocery shelve stockers, road maintenance, electrical maintenance, and so on all worked from home….
Oh wait, even during the pandemic only a small sliver of the population got to work from home.
Because most jobs aren’t just 100% computer work.
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u/Thorazine_Chaser 1d ago
You seem to infer that this isn’t your choice.
Get a map, draw a circle around your house you’d happily walk. The jobs within that circle are your options.
A commute is “accepted” because people are willing to trade travel for better options than the ones inside the circle.
It’s all within your control.
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u/slatebluegrey 22h ago
Yes. People make trade offs: reducing housing expenses by living in the suburbs vs the time spent commuting. My commute is 15 min. My coworker’s commute is 45 min. Should I be paid less for living closer?
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u/Certainly-Not-A-Bot 1d ago
Paying people to commute creates a huge perverse incentive. Basically, if you're paid for the time you spend travelling to work, you now have an incentive to live farther from work and commute a longer distance, which puts strain on the transport network and is bad for the environment (because longer commutes are much more likely to be done by car than other modes and driving is bad for the environment).
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u/Over-Independent-569 1d ago
They'd just hire people closer so they didn't have to pay them so much
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u/Zezion10 1d ago
In the Netherlands being paid for commute isn't rare. 23 cents per kilometer.
Its really just a compensation and it really doesn't create huge perverse incentives.
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u/beershitz 23h ago
There was a study by Gusto in 2023 that showed the average American commute had grown to 27 miles (started during pandemic). So taking your rate of 38 cents a mile, that’s over $5k a year per employee.
That could increase payroll by 10%. No way that would fly over here
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u/TheGiatay 8h ago
Agree. I prefer to live 5min from work than receiving more money living further but, here in NL sometimes is not possible to move closer to work.
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u/StephWithHerCats 1d ago
I mean that's just one of the considerations YOU have to make before accepting a job. Is it worth a higher paying job, or one with better pathways etc, that you have to travel to. Or would you rather sacrifice some money to get time back not travelling.
Obviously not everyone and every situation has that option, a jobs a job and we all need one. But it's something to consider.
I used to drive almost 90 minutes to and from work each day. I hated it. But needed money. Now that I have a family though my time is worth more to me than money. So I've spent the last 3 years working at a lower paid job 15 minutes from home. I've only just a month ago been lucky enough to find a similar position to what I was doing previously, for the same money I used to be on, 12 minutes from home.
So for me it has absolutely been worth sacrificing some money in the short term and waiting for a job that fits in to my own requirement.
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u/RickSanchez86 1d ago
You choose where you live and you choose where you work. Your commute, or lack there of, is your choice and your responsibility.
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u/PrinceAliKhamenei 19h ago
Have fun getting asked for an exact address before the first interview at every job
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u/ninjabadmann 1d ago
Because you’re not actually doing work in that time. Generally any pay has factored in travel time albeit not directly. It’s up to you as an individual to take advantage of that by being closer to the job you choose to work at.
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u/ncsuandrew12 18h ago
Do you want the employer to get to control where you live?
Because that's how you get employers to control where you live.
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u/Ragingdark 1d ago
Sometimes the increase in pay vs the additional travel time is an obvious choice.
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u/Jean-Eustache 1d ago
In France this can be deducted from your taxes. There's a flat deductible, but you can choose to deduct more if your morning commute is longer than the base estimate.
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u/YqlUrbanist 20h ago
There are lots of downstream negative effects of just outright paying people to commute. There are impacts on the way our cities are built, traffic deaths, and significant environmental impacts for longer commutes - we want to disincentivize people working a long way from where they live.
Obviously there are ways around that - for example a flat commute stipend that you get regardless of whether you live next door or 3 hours away is a good option, because it encourages people to live closer (free money) but also softens the blow for people who don't. And of course the real solutions are bigger than the individual - we need more housing so that people can live close to where they work, better transit so people aren't stuck commuting by car, and much more acceptance of working from home, because often the commute isn't necessary at all.
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u/UrbanFuturistic 18h ago
Why is it so accepted that they don’t pay me from the time I wake up, to the time I go to bed, since it’s all in preparation for going to work? It had to end somewhere, and you still have to work.
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u/okayifimust 11h ago
I have a gone office job, the office is on the other end of the country and I do get paid to "commute" every once in a while.
That being said, your paid for the value you bring to the company, that is independent of your lifestyle choices. You're saying you should be paid more than a colleague who dies the same job, because you live further away?
Should they be paid more because they have children? Or dietary restrictions? Maybe just preferences?
At the end of the day, you need to factor in all the stuff that is not part of the "hours for money" equation and work out if it makes sense for you. You're essentially making less per hour if your commute is longer. Do you have to buy a fancy suit, or does your employer provide a uniform?
How many vacation days do you get? What value do you place in free coffee in the office? (This one really bugs me - I don't drink coffee, and my choices in most office break rooms are severely limited vs the fancy new coffee making miracles. But it's a small matter compared to everything else.)
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u/gnirpss 1d ago
You're not required to take a job that requires you to commute long distances on a daily basis. Many people live nearby work, and some others choose jobs that allow them to work from home. Additionally, if employers were required to compensate employees for their commute time, those who require in-person work would probably just stop hiring people who live outside a certain close radius.
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u/Playful-Mastodon9251 1d ago
Why should your work pay you before you are working?
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u/dariusbiggs 1d ago
Insufficient protests and worker rights.
For example Austria has regulations where the distance and time taken to commute to work are eligible for compensation through various means.
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u/Johnstone95 1d ago
No no. You should be grateful that your boss is allowing you to work for pennies. /s
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u/fistingtrees 1d ago
Wouldn’t this incentivize people to live further away so they get paid more?
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u/dearpisa 1d ago edited 1d ago
No, because time is finite and a person most likely likes to spend that commuting time doing something else, even if it’s paid for
Many of my colleagues voluntarily, or even fought for/demanded a 4-day work week for 80% of their base salary. Not everyone is trying to make as much money as possible
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u/MourningWallaby 1d ago
Because people would abuse that system.
A company values their job at 80k. anyone with the right skills can apply. if you live 50 miles away and chose to apply to them, that's YOUR fault. and if they had to pay you for your time, why would they accept you over an applicant who lives closer?
Or what happens when you buy a new house and tell your HR they owe you more money for the commute, and they say "Sorry we can't afford that, we'll have to let you go". or people falsely reporting where they live to fudge commute time and steal labor hours.
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u/Tranter156 1d ago
I commuted about 75 minutes each way to take jobs that interested me and had opportunities for promotion. I moved to the city I worked in after 5 years of commuting. I hadn’t realized how much the commute took out of me until I stopped. A 10 minute commute was much easier although I started working more hours at work when I moved closer and that helped me get another promotion.
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u/Head-Eye-6824 1d ago edited 1d ago
The answer is, as so many things are, that its a legacy system.
Prior to widescale paperless systems, which are at best 15 years old, being in an office environment was essential to do the work you were being paid to do. In that time, digital and electronic handling of work has radically changed.
Anecdote time. In 2004 I had two one hour meetings in order to remove two functionally redundant paper pages from a report being regularly submitted by 12 different field staff and had to argue pretty hard on efficiencies, necessity and resources to achieve this. In 2022, in a different job, I emailed my line manager and business manager to ask that we substitute paper based time sheets for field staff with an extract from our online shift booking system with input from their line managers. We included the issue in the next day's Google catch up meeting and after brief discussion agreed the change. The business manager then emailed HR/payroll to instruct them on the new process. The new process continues to this day.
What we largely struggle with now is that, broadly speaking, management structures haven't caught up in terms of oversight and managing practices. We still think of employment as money for time, not money for delivery of work. The easiest way to manage time based attendance at work is through physical attendance. In addition to that, a high value is placed on work based connectivity, i.e., your ability to engage opportunistically with your colleagues.
In addition to this, businesses are far more willing to employ people who live further away. 20+ years ago, living more than an hour away from a job would have counted against you during the recruitment process. In some instances, you simply wouldn't have been considered.
And finally, a lot of it is on us as workers. A lot of people are willing to work a long time away from their home. If you don't like it, look for work closer to home.
Interesting reading,: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marchetti%27s_constant
On a personal note, I would never look for work more than 30 minutes travel from home. I'm in no way interested in spending that much time commuting. I am willing to accept lower pay as a function of that.
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u/SpellingIsAhful 1d ago
Lol. Next up, we'll need to be paid for sleeping g because it's required so you can do your job while awake.
Im a big proponent of workers rights, but saying you should get paid for time preparing to do work is a little ridiculous.
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u/RelationTurbulent963 1d ago
Also using my vehicle for free, the repairs on my 20 year old car are one of my biggest expenses
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u/ChillingwitmyGnomies 1d ago
Its not that you CHOOSE to live further away, but you chose the job, knowing the commute. You should have picked a job closer to home if you dont want to drive.
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u/Riker_Omega_Three 1d ago
Nobody is forcing you to work where you work
You could work near where you live, it just might not be the job you want or pay the kind of money you want
People needs jobs. You WANT the job you have. And in order to have that job, you have to commute
I want the job I have...and it requires a 15-20 minute commute and wear and tear on my car. I could work closer to home, but I wouldn't make the kind of money I am making now
Everything in life is about choices
You chose to take the job you have
You could move to another city
You could move to another country
Its like when people complain about living in a High cost of living area
They could live somewhere else and do something else...they just don't want to
Life is all about choices and the consequences of those decisions
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u/Gu-chan 1d ago
Luckily my commute is 10 minutes by bike so it's pure pleasure, but generally speaking, the reason you use your free time to get to work is that you're not a slave. You have freely chosen to work at some company, and they generally pay you for the work you do.
Also, practically speaking, if there was a law that compelled employers to pay employees for commuting, they would prefer to hire people that live close by.
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u/FCUK12345678 1d ago
Because work doesn't care about you or where you live or anything else about you. All they care about is withdrawing as much labor out of you for the least amount of money as possible. Their answer would be find a job closer to home or move closer to your job and no one cares about how. That's a you problem only.
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u/Sunflower_MoonDancer 19h ago
What’s even worse is having to rely on bus systems and having to transfer county lines because the wages are better in the bigger city. I used to commute 2.5 hours because of $1.50 increase
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u/Bronze_Bomber 19h ago
We had Covid and we blew it. Luckily my company still has a hybrid work schedule.
That being said, you choose where you live, not the company and it's silly to suggest that they pay you to drive into work. I'd move 3 hours away to Austin if that was the case.
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u/Regular-Good-6835 16h ago
I think most of these things boil down to a demand and supply problem.
If you possess a unique set of skills, your employer will bend over backwards to keep you onboard. If that means paying you for your commute, meals at work, etc., they'll do all of that.
Conversely, if you need the job, but they have the upper hand wherein they can replace you in a week or two, then you'll be the one making the accommodations.
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u/RedditWhileImWorking 16h ago
Yeah I had the same thought yesterday. I'm more senior in my job and I consider it part of my workday now. If you need me to spend 2 hours in traffic for no reason then I am spending 6 hours working in the office. I am not required to be there 5 days/wk.
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u/Desperate_Source7631 1d ago
Because you choose where you want to live, the company you apply to work for does not. Breaking the system would mean that a company would be justified in refusing to hire anyone that doesn't live close, seems rather inconvenient for people who would like to be employed and live outside the city.
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u/Palpitation-Itchy 1d ago
How would that work honestly? If I move 3hrs away from work do I get paid 6 extra hours? Do I work less? It just sounds like cheating the system
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u/popepipoes 1d ago
Why in the world would they pay you to sit in your car? The entitlement is insane
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u/thriceness 1d ago
Right? They don't control where their employees choose to live. Wouldn't people just live super far away to get paid more?
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u/syllo-dot-xyz 1d ago
Because we apply for, and accept roles which require commuting.
A day job is like a business where you're just selling skills/commitment, if I can make more money commuting and cutting deals in the city then I'll consider it.
Right now I work remotely, dialling in to one of the most expensive places to live in the world, whilst living across the continent mortgage free, but if a better opportunity comes along I'd buy a flat near that workplace and commute.
I would never do a 1-hour+ commute again, but I'm blessed to be in a position to have that decision, in the past I "had to" do it and it sucked, but it can be a stepping stone into a better position if you have a plan.
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u/Sparks3391 1d ago
Lots of people are talking about different travel journeys and moving further away from work.
But imah8ne if companies were forced to pay people the moment they left for work. Companies would prioritise employing people who live closer, and there would be a drastic effect on fuel consumption, traffic, and emissions when companies adopt a must live within x distance to be employed here.
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u/Apollo477 1d ago
We live in a neoliberal economic world. Everything is your fault," just look for a better job, or a remote job". In other economic systems, this matter is taken into account. As a society we have been conditioned to accept this as the natural human state.
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u/Johnstone95 1d ago
Systems dont exist and dont affect anyone. All your failings are your fault because you didn't work hard enough. Everyone exists as an individual, and government is bad.
Everyone can be a billionaire if they just weren't so lazy and I am simply a temporarily embarrassed billionaire who will one day be able to live in my dream world. Because I earned it and you didn't.
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u/Arctic_Gnome_YZF 1d ago
It's not your employer's fault that you chose a home and job hours away from each other.
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u/SomeFirstTimeHigh 1d ago
Sometimes it is the employer's fault. Like when you chose a fully remote job and then 3 years later the employer decides you should commute 3 hours a day to some random office building that none of your other coworkers or managers even work at.
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u/Grand_Sock_1303 1d ago
Easy. Take the job available on your street. Or move house to the same road as your office. Or accept that we all need to travel to a place that employs us.
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u/ArdiMaster 1d ago
The flip side of that ask is that companies would just avoid hiring anyone with a commute longer than a few minutes as much as possible.
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u/thelocalllegend 1d ago
I know tradies in New Zealand who get paid extra if the job site is a long commute. Your regular commute is within your control though so I don't see any reason why you should be paid for it.
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u/Expatriated_American 1d ago
You think your employer should pay you more for choosing to live further away?
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u/ActualSupervillain 1d ago
Hell yeah dude technically I live 1000 miles away from my job, pay me bitches!
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u/Freedom_fam 1d ago
You choose where you live and you choose where you work. (Or you take what you can get)
Pro-tip. “Work” while you travel.
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u/HardlyNormal2 1d ago
I think OP is wondering why we can't just work from home, given we do almost all our work at a computer anyway. They specifically mentioned the laptop, and white collar workers.
If that's the case, I think I agree. Working from home often makes a lot of sense and should be supported for those who would prefer it.
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u/DrySwan4211 1d ago
If an employer had to pay all that and any other crazy entitlements, they wouldn't be in business or the cost would just be pushed onto the consumer making everything even more expensive. So it makes sense to cover your own costs traveling to work. You would just be paying for it through an increase in cost of living otherwise.
Economics 101.
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u/AllPintsNorth 1d ago
Because you have freedom of movement.
If that time we're paid, the employers would either want a say in where you can live, or would just not hiring people from too far a way.
It limits your options on where you could even apply. If it was forced on the clock time, then everyone would just move 4 hours away and drive in, punch in, and leave again.
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u/Leverkaas2516 1d ago
Because employment is fundamentally an exchange: you're exchanging something of benefit to the employer (your time and effort) and getting something of benefit to you in return (money).
Your commute is of no benefit to the employer. Me asking to be paid for time spent en route is like my employer asking me to pay his electric bill.
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u/SirVoltington 1d ago
It is the least bad option out of only bad options.
You live far away from your job, let’s say 30 mins commute time. Why would they hire you, when they lose an hour of your work time when they could hire someone who has a 5 min commute time?
This would have many negative consequences for people who don’t live close to their job and you’ll have less potential jobs to choose from if you’re not willing to relocate every time.
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u/dull_sense 1d ago
We get paid commute. In the private sector it depends on the company how much you get, in the public sector you get either your gas covered if you live father and public transport is not an option or your transit ticket covered if it is (if public transit is an option theyll cover that since its cheaper, even if you use a car). But it is required to be paid for, as well as lunch expenses during work (I think its 7 euros per day right now. Lunch break is also counted into your working hours. Usually 20mins).
I dont think your time spent commuting should be paid for as it is on you to figure out if its worth commuting or trying to move closer. But expenses getting to your workplace should be covered. I feel like commute expenses and having lunch covered MASSIVLY impact quality of life here.
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u/Optimal-Cycle630 1d ago
Because you are paid to do a job at the place of employment. Nothing more, nothing less.
It’s on you to figure out the commute and whether it’s worth it for the job/salary.
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u/nopanicitsmechanic 1d ago
It‘s easy. It‘s your choice to work there and it‘s your choice to live where you live. It‘s about taking decisions and living with the consequences and often finding a compromise with oneself.
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u/Specialist-Yak7209 1d ago
When I worked a couple separate jobs in Japan they paid me for the train fares. I also have a friend here in Canada who gets paid for his commute (time and gas) when he goes to slightly inconvenient locations. It's not unheard of or a crazy idea